"Let me tell you a secret," says sound healing pioneer David Ison, "everything is vibrating, everything is pulsing with the sound of creation, through the shimmering, ringing tone of vibration the simultaneous interplay between reaction and reaction." In his endearingly deep and gravelly voice, Ison explains that he got into this field after a severe car accident left him unable to walk. He used meditation as a means of pain reduction, then gradually regained the use of his legs much earlier than the doctors predicted. This "led to the creation of some very powerful music that mimics the breath and resonates with the body's energy system--releases the storehouse of the body's creative vital force that's waiting there to be discovered and experienced."

Ison's music has been tested in the field of battle, literally. It was successfully used to help troops sleep during the heat of hostilities in Iraq, and Chakra Illumination is perhaps is strongest medicine yet. Here, Ison breaks the chakras down into two groups that are activated through the two "Harmonizer" sections, extended drones that combine in flowing, graceful extended pulses of energy, bending and slowing time like light through crystal, refracting our being into a colorful prism, the first "Harmonizer" track activating the lower chakras, the second one bringing energy up and through the crown.

As the label notes, Chakra Illumination is designed to "make meditation pleasurable (and virtually effortless)." That's no idle boast. Aside from slapping it with an Rx label and a droopy eye symbol, there's no other way to let you know just how effective Ison's music can be used for everything from falling asleep to curbing cravings and emotional distress, to activating that Kundalini ladder-climbing serpent. For best results use good headphones or a solid stereo system so you can really feel the vibrations in and along your spinal column. Then just relax and tune in to this universal "reset" pattern of Ison's "Harmonizer" tracks. Just make sure to find a nice space of safe seclusion so you can freely let yourself be dissolved and reassembled in what you never before knew was your full working order.